Middlesbrough MP supports Covid worker in visa row
Andy McDonald, MP for Middlesbrough, has written to the Health Secretary and the Home Secretary after a Middlesbrough COVID Support worker had her visa extension refused.
Ms Kim Stewart, a Canadian national, has worked at James Cook University Hospital since last December working in the ICU wards providing patient care. She spent New Years Eve attending to a 34 year-old patient given less than 24 hours to live. She also spent time with families, preparing them to be able to say goodbye to family members. Kim has also been involved with the logistics of the vaccination programme.
Yet she has been informed she does not qualify for the one-year visa extension for front line health workers.
“I am appalled that someone like Kim, who has worked tirelessly for our wonderful NHS, supporting many victims of COVID, is being treated so dismissively. How her work cannot be considered important enough to qualify for the visa extension is incomprehensible. The care and support she has given to patients and their families has been beyond measure,” said Andy McDonald, MP.
“She contacted me for support and I have written to both the Health Secretary and the Home Secretary urging them to reconsider – Kim, and others who do similar jobs, deserve our utmost gratitude and they should have the right to continue doing that work on behalf of the NHS.”